


Unclouded Day

by NervousAsexual



Category: The Golden Boys (film)
Genre: Drowning, Found Family, Grief/Mourning, Huddling For Warmth, Hurt/Comfort, IT'S WORTH IT, Major Illness, Pneumonia, Polyamory, Queerplatonic Relationships, and has no fandom for a good reason, and i did enjoy it, but you know something, i decided that writing this was gonna be just oodles of self indulgence, like it used to be when i was a wee writer who enjoyed it a lot, so even if nobody reads this but me, so this movie sucked
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-04
Updated: 2019-04-04
Packaged: 2020-01-04 21:00:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18351632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NervousAsexual/pseuds/NervousAsexual
Summary: After the rescue goes wrong, Zeb is able to save Luther--even if it is only from the water.





	Unclouded Day

"Never took you for a crybaby," he told Luther, and Luther wrapped an arm around him.

"Okay," he said. "Okay, Zeb. But I'm not gonna be much good to you."

Well, he was gonna be alive, God willing, and that was what mattered. He got Luther around him as best as he could, started pulling them both back to shore.

In his mind he kept hearing Perez--"I think you're gonna die"--and that made him madder than anything. He was gonna die, was he? No thank you. John was dead. God help them, Luther's crew was dead. Zebulon Hedge had no interest in adding to those numbers.

They were close, so close, when the rope finally gave.

No, he thought, no, no, no--and they struck water just beyond the shore.

Knocked the wind out of him and in his rush for air he just barely kept his head above water. He reached out for Luther--grabbed him, and Luther just barely grabbed him too. The waves would have dragged them both out into the bay if Hazeltine and Perez hadn't been near, dragging them back onto the beach.

There they lay, soaked to the bone and dizzy and half-dead, until Zeb about cracked.

He thought he'd die laughing after all. The cape had just decided to throw everything at him and somehow here he still was, and here Luther still was.

Luther's hand creeped up over his shoulder, shaking, and he laughed and hugged him, but Luther just blinked with those tired, red-rimmed eyes.

"Barmy as a bedlamite," Perez declared, hauling him to his feet. So be it. What did he care? He was alive. They were both alive.

He glanced over and and Pasha was on her father, hugging him so tightly that it almost made him feel this was what he'd always been meant to do. Luther lay on his back, staring up at the sky as he gasped for breath, and stroked her face.

"Damn fool," Perez added, and so Zeb hugged him as well.

"Well," Hazeltine said, looking around himself. "That went a good deal better than I thought it would."

Pasha, covered in sand and now soggy, got up on her knees and tried to help her father up. He curled in on himself, coughing and gasping and he raised his eyes just enough that Zeb could see him staring out to the capsized boat.

It could have gone better.

The first few angry drops of rain came down. 

"Pardon my mouth," he said, catching sight of Martha watching from the wagon, "but let's get the hell out of here."

Martha put a stew on while the doctor was in, and once again Zeb found himself impressed by someone who could function during a trial. Sensible, like. Elizabeth tried, God bless her, but didn't always know when to quit.

They put up Luther in Zeb's room, though Jerry gave it a bit of an evil eye.

"You're gonna put a sick man in a room where a man died not a week ago?" he asked, but the way Zeb saw it he'd already been displaced once, and he wasn't gonna be the one to ask Luther and Pasha to go back to that empty service dormer.

He went up himself to announce the dinner, but Luther was out and Pasha had dark circles around her eyes like a raccoon.

"Grub's done," he said, for want of something more comforting.

"I'm fine," Pasha said. She sat stiffly, hands folded in her lap, watching her father sleep. "But thank you."

"You sure? You're pale as a ghost and you've already had a shock. Probably best to take your meals regular."

"I have to stay." Pasha's voice trembled. "I don't want him to wake up alone."

"He won't. I'll stay with him."

"I can't ask you that, Captain Zeb."

"Dammit, kid, it's my room and he's my crew. It wouldn't be asking for the moon."

She squeezed her eyes closed. Were those tears? Oh, hell.

He got Elizabeth for her. Jerry would have had something to say about that--next-of-kin for a dead man comforting the next-of-kin for a half-drowned man--but that was precisely why Zeb said nothing to him. Jerry was a good man but his superstitions and anxieties could be exhausting.

He found Elizabeth hanging around with Hazeltine, looking out at the storm, but they both agreed that Pasha had to eat and they would do their best to give her a little comfort, and Pasha reluctantly admitted she was a bit hungry.

His old bunk was a gloomy enough place, she didn't need to hang around too long.

He sat at the window in the gray half-light of the evening, going through the old catalogs Martha hadn't found yet. The storm was whipping outside, the sea was roaring with the wind, and behind him in the bed Luther was breathing hard.

It was enough to make a stable man get the anxieties.

After a while the breathing turned to coughing, and when he turned Luther was half-raised up in the bed, wheezing and shuddering. "Alright there Lute?"

Luther was back to gasping, shaky high-pitched gasps. His eyes were wide. He sank back against Zeb's pillow.

"You should have let me die," he whispered.

"Come on, Lute. Don't be like that."

"They're all gone. You should have let me go with them."

Zeb sighed.

"You gonna call me a crybaby again? I think I've earned the right to cry."

"Yeah. I reckon you have."

Outside the wind was still howling. Luther tipped his head back against the headboard and dragged in a deep breath that only caused more coughing. Something was moving in his chest and his gasps grew even more ragged. Zeb grabbed a handkerchief off the dresser--thanked God again for Martha--and brought it to him. When Luther didn't move he put the kerchief into his hand and gently raised it hand up to his mouth. He put his other hand to Luther's back. It was burning up under Perez' loaned night shirt. His lungs rattled and he sagged forward.

The gasps kept coming and he figured he ought to say something. Weren't exactly in Luther's best interest to be getting worked up like this. "You did everything you could."

"You don't know that."

"I know you, though."

Luther felt heavier against his hands and for a moment Zeb worried he might have passed out but the hoarse, strained breathing kept going.

"Luther?"

Luther sat back in the bed, the kerchief balled in his hand.

"Saved me once," he said weakly. "Isn't that enough for one lifetime?"

Confusion clouded his mind for a minute. Saved him...? Then he remembered the story Luther'd told Martha. How he'd put Luther to work watching over the men and ended up getting them back into port. "You're my crew. Isn't anything I wouldn't do for you." Luther only looked at him for a moment, his eyes shining in the dreary light from the window, before he turned away. "What?"

"Tired," Luther said. "Just tired."

"I'll let you sleep. Didn't figure you'd want me here, but Pash'd been worried about you waking up by yourself."

It wasn't until that night, relating this back to Perez, Jerry, and Martha around the fireplace, that he realized what he'd said.

"They were his crew, ya blockhead." Perez poked the embers up into a tiny flame. "And he couldn't save them. Good job, Zeb, you made him feel worse."

"It's not a hard comparison for someone in his position to make." Martha rocked slowly in her chair, working away at a torn buttonhole. "You should talk with him in the morning."

"Honestly," Perez said, slumping back in his chair. "Sometimes you're denser than a box of rocks, Zebulon."

Only Jerry didn't have much to say, and after the others headed off to bed he asked why.

"Isn't much you can tell him. Nothing right, anyway."

After that Jerry headed out to the camp bed in the upstairs hall, and Zeb realized he could still hear Hazeltine, Elizabeth, and Pasha, still out talking in the kitchen.

Well, Hazeltine was a ways from home, and it was good for Pasha to be with people her own age. Good for them.

And because his bed was taken, Zeb settled in by the fire and waited for morning.

He dreamed of the sea--he always did--and it swept him farther and farther from land and though he shouted and screamed at the top of his lungs the people on the beach wouldn't look at him.

In the morning light the storm hadn't improved and Luther had only gotten worse. Even while he slept he struggled to breathe.

Pneumonia. In a man Luther's age it was dangerous. For a man without much fight left in him... possibly deadly.

Pasha shouldn't have to see him like that. He roped Hazeltine and Elizabeth into helping, told them to keep her occupied, show her some of the junk in the house, make her a brunch in the kitchen, tunnel into the foundation using only spoons, anything to keep her mind off her father drowning in the infection in his own lungs.

He told himself that when Luther woke he would explain to him, and he sat there at the bedside turning over and over in his mind what he would say. It felt like it was helping, but when at last Luther opened his eyes and gasped like a man breaking the surface of the water he realized just how little idea he had. Everything he'd been planning in his head boiled down to either a half-baked platitude or some sugary comfort phrase that would melt the instant he spoke it. Instead of words, none of which came, he took another kerchief off the dresser--thanked God again for Martha--and pressed it into Luther's hand. "I'm sorry, Lute."

Luther shook like he was still out in the storm, an all-over shake that made it look even worse when he coughed up a mouthful of phlegm into the kerchief. When it was done he leaned back against the pillow--propped up to keep him from lying flat--and turned his eyes toward Zeb.

"What I said on the ship, I was trying... hell, there's no excuse. It was a lousy thing to say. And what I said after, I wasn't trying to upset you. I know you, Lute. I know you did everything you could for your crew. I just meant you still got a crew to live for. You got a daughter to live for. That's more'n most."

They both knew sailing wasn't a sure thing. There'd been casualties on his watch, despite everything. But--and Perez would have been the first to point it out, couldn't believe he hadn't already--those were isolated. The worst of the lot was a storm that washed three crewmen overboard. He'd been angry. He'd been guilty. But there'd been others on the ship who'd seen it happen. He wasn't the only survivor, wondering why he wasn't dead too.

"'m cold," Luther mumbled. He was shaking so hard his teeth were chattering.

"You got a fever. Lemme see if I can find you another blanket."

There used to be a stack of 'em on his armchair. Used to be every time one got too grimy to use he'd toss it in the corner, grab another of the chair, and be set. Now, though, they were no where to be seen. Martha had probably put them in some unseen linen closet. God love her, but that was not what he needed right now.

"Hang on," he said, and went to his wardrobe instead. A bunch of old coats hung in the back, where Martha had yet feared to tread. They would have to do. He dragged them out and piled them one at a time onto Luther. Luther just shivered harder. If he could find something to hold heat and tuck it under the covers with him maybe that would help, but he couldn't think of a thing that would hold heat and not make a mess.

"God help me," he said, more to himself than to God, and he slid under the covers.

Luther said nothing to this, but he pressed close against Zeb, shivering and shaking but all over sweat. He'd be salty, Zeb thought, like ocean water. Outside the wind howled and rattled the windowpane. Zeb rubbed at Luther's arms, and Luther's head tipped down against his shoulder, and at that moment he realized it didn't really matter what he said to him. What with the fever and exhaustion Luther didn't have the slightest idea what was going on. He was as confused as an old man with pneumonia. He was an old man with pneumonia.

"You best not die anyway," Zeb told him. "Not after all the trouble I went through to save you."

Luther clutched at him, the same way he had on the beach. When Zeb looked down at him he was still shaking and his eyes were half-closed. No doubt Pasha would have been more of a comfort to him, but after what had happened with John and Elizabeth he didn't want to recreate that particular tragedy. Much as he hated to admit it, Jerry was right. A man had died in this bed not long before, and it was possible now that someone else would as well. Even through his sweater he could feel how hot Luther's cheeks and forehead were burning.

"Always knew you were the type to come over deathly to get out of an argument. But you're gonna get through this and then like or not we're gonna talk."

Martha came in without knocking and found them like that, but she smiled when she saw them.

"Must be something in the water," she said.

"What's that supposed to mean?" He'd been cramped like this for the better part of an hour and the weather was making his joints creak like sails in a strong wind.

"Come on." Martha moved the covers around so that Zeb could extricate himself. "See for yourself."

Without the bedclothes around him holding in the warmth the room was about freezing. He looked Luther over, but he was sleeping hard. The worst of the rigors seemed to be over.

Martha rubbed his arms now--God love her, if Jerry wouldn't marry the girl he would--and led him down the stairs to the fireplace. On the davenport where he'd spent the night Hazeltine know sat, facing away from them with his head propped up on one hand, snoring slightly.

"What..." Zeb started to say, but Martha shushed him and led the way around to the front of the davenport. Hazeltine was sitting up, but he was the only one. Elizabeth lay with her head on his lap, and Pasha was curled up almost on top of her, resting her head against Elizabeth's chest. Maybe it was just the fire burning in the grate, but he felt warmer.

"Good kids," he said.

"Real good kids," Martha agreed. "I don't believe I've ever seen..." Her voice trailed off, and she looked away from the group on the davenport. "Captain Perez is contacting the families of the ones who died. We--the two of us, and Captain Jeremiah--thought it might not be best to leave the job to Mr. Norris."

"I expect so."

"I want you to know, you don't have to sit with him." As he went to argue she held up a hand. "Pasha doesn't have to either. I didn't mind caring for Mr. Bartlett, and I don't mind caring for Mr. Norris."

A heavy lump settled in the back of Zeb's throat, and coughing did nothing to clear it. "You've done a lot for us already. Don't want you to feel obligated..."

Martha walked away from the fire and gestured to him to follow. They went to the kitchen where they could look out at the sea still tossing beyond the cape.

"Perhaps it's not like this in Chatham," she said cautiously. Her gaze stayed fixed on the water. "I shouldn't assume. Where I'm from, your friends are your family. What is it they say? The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb?"

Zeb looked out at the storm. How many bodies had been recovered in this mess? How many would be lost?

"But I think you know what I mean. The way you, Perez, and Jerry all live together. The way you talk about people being a part of your crew, even people who've never left the shore. Stop me if I'm being too forward, but I consider you all to be my family."

Still with the lump. He cleared his throat and nothing came of it.

"Am I wrong? Maybe you don't think of me that way. Maybe this is all my mistaking friendship for something else. I'm being too pushy about the family thing."

"No." He cleared his throat again. Still nothing. "You're part of the family now. Why not? We're all livin' under the same roof, anyhow."

She was looking at him, he could feel it, but he wasn't sure he could look back.

"That means a lot to me," she said softly. "Thank you, Zebulon."

He waved her off.

"Now, and I mean it this time, I want to know if it would help for me to sit with Mr. Norris."

"Dunno. I don't know. Yesterday I would have said he'd probably've felt better about me, seeing as how he's served under me before. But Perez' right. All I've done is make him feel worse."

She put a hand on his shoulder. "I'll stay with him."

Guilt, anger, and fear all fought in the back of his mind. "I don't want you to feel obligated to... er... he'd been having chills, and you don't have to..."

Out of the corner of his eye he saw her smile."I believe that's what the hot water bottles are for."

Pasha sat with her father and Zeb didn't argue. If he died...

Hazeltine and Elizabeth sat with her most of the time, and Martha was in and out. She wasn't alone. That was the important part.

The doctor came in the early evening--Zeb was tempted to ask him, who do you have out there so sick that you can't see to a dying man first thing in the morning? but didn't--and Hazeltine and Elizabeth took Pasha downstairs. Zeb hung around, though, and when the doctor left he ducked in.

Luther was paler than a ghost, still shivering, still looking exhausted, still soaked in sweat. He barely seemed to notice Zeb coming in. He was holding a glass in his hands, half-filled with brandy, that came dangerously close to spilling as his hands trembled.

"Let me help if I can." Zeb took the glass from him. "You want some? I can probably help you..." He held it up to Luther's lips, but the only response was more strained breathing. "It'll help the coughing, Lute, you should have some."

"Captain?"

Luther raised his sad, sad eyes up to him and Zeb looked down to him. He wasn't a kid any more--hadn't been, really, back in the '70s, but had always seemed like it. Now he looked ready to let go. "It's Zeb, Lute. You don't have t' call me captain anymore."

"Have to..." He was panting, lungs rattling like mad. "The families, they should..."

"Don't worry about that. Jerry and Perez are taking care of it."

"I shouldn't..."

"Nobody's gonna blame you, not when you're like this."

But Luther shook his head. "Should have... should have gone with the rest of them."

A draft from the window set the lamp to flickering. Between the storm clouds and the weak evening light it was too dark to see proper. "Why?"

"'s not fair."

He'd been there. God only knew he'd been there for smaller casualties. Every time he lost a sailor he'd known the families were thinking the same thing--why them? Why had Zeb survived, why had any of the crew survived, when the person they loved was gone? "I know that. But what's the alternative? You want to make Pasha an orphan?"

Luther closed his eyes and the first few tears squeezed through.

"Come on, Lute. You know that's just gonna make it worse." There was no answer. "You want me to go get her? That make you feel any better?"

"No."

"Then what, damn it? Want me to leave so you don't have to look at my ugly mug anymore?"

The tears were pouring out now and the shaking was worse.

"I want to help you. I do. But you gotta tell me what you need me to do."

Luther was gasping again. It hurt just to hear. Zeb put a hand on his shoulder and it was still hot to the touch.

"Sleep," Luther rasped. "Want to sleep. And not..."

He took a chance on something he'd thought before. "Not dream about them?"

Luther nodded.

"I don't think I can stop that from happening." The coughing started up again, but this time it didn't seem to move anything. Luther coughed until he was short of breath and he was curled over himself again. Zeb left his hand on his shoulder. The whole moment seemed fragile, like they were stepping around something that needed to be addressed but could fall apart at any minute. He looked down and through Luther's thinning hair he saw bruises and the lump where the sail had struck him on the ship. "How's the head?" Luther panted and didn't respond. Getting worked up again. Zeb tried to push the brandy to him. "Here. You need some of this."

Luther just covered his face with his hand and turned away.

No, he knew how that went. It was easy to isolate yourself, make yourself miserable thinking over and over about what had gone wrong. Well, he wasn't going to cotton to that.

"Move over," Zeb said gruffly, and sat right down on the edge of the bed. Luther stiffened up but still said nothing. Zeb slipped the hand on his shoulder around and pulled him in for an extremely ungraceful hug. Whatever it was they were stepping around was still there, and he still couldn't put a name to it, but he held on.

Luther all but melted into him. His head sank down against Zeb's chest and his hands self-consciously picked at Zeb's sweater. He was still burning with fever, still crying, still shaking, but he didn't pull away.

Poor kid. And even with the thinning hair, the shaky hands, the softness in his belly, the daughter older than Luther had been when they first met--he was still a kid.

Didn't know what to say. Likely there wasn't anything to say. Zeb knew better than anyone that words were just words, couldn't change what had already happened. But silence didn't help. Silence let the winds in, and the sound of waves crashing out on the water.

He thought of John, who'd died in this room, on this bed, and thought of how he'd been in life. Thought of him singing hymns in the church as he'd always loved to do.

And he hummed the only one he knew.

Oh, they tell me of a home far beyond the skies,

Oh, they tell me of a home far away,

Oh, they tell me of a home where no storm clouds rise,

Oh, they tell me of an unclouded day.

He thought he heard footsteps on the stairs. Pasha coming back? That actually seemed like a good thing. Luther needed a reminder of why he needed to stay, and Pasha--she needed her dad.

Oh, they tell me of a home where my friends have gone

Oh, they tell me of that land far away,

Where the tree of life in eternal bloom

Sheds its fragrance through the unclouded day.

Never said he was good at singing, at music, at much of anything other than sailing and snapping back and forth with Perez and Jerry. But Luther didn't complain. He was heavy against Zeb's chest, still struggling with shallow rattling breaths, and Zeb thought he might die like that.

What if he did?

Then he would. Wasn't anything anybody could do to stop it; it was mostly up to God now. Luther gave a shudder, like the tail end of a sob, and Zeb hugged him a little tighter. In case he needed it he repeated that last verse, this time out loud, with words.

"Oh, they tell me of a home where my friends have gone, oh, they tell me of that land far away, where the tree of life in eternal bloom sheds its fragrance through the unclouded day."

So there it was. Out in the open. And even as the words left his mouth they felt vague and unhelpful. Truth was, he never had a loss like this. Hadn't ever been close to his own family, hadn't talked to them in years, didn't know or care when they died. John had been a friend, but they'd never been what you'd call close. Not the way John and Elizabeth had been, or Luther and the rest of the service. Those men might as well have been his family, helping him raise his little girl after his wife died. Only thing he could think that would compare was if Jerry or Perez... if he lost one of them, or Martha, or some combination of all of them.

He didn't have any right to talk about it, didn't have any frame of reference to comfort him with--and thank God, how many men of his age could say that?--and, truth be told, he didn't know how much comfort a hymn would be. He wasn't even sure Luther believed in a god.

But he was sleeping. Realized that as the door opened and Pasha slipped in, alone. Sleeping hard but maybe breathing a little easier. Like it had been on the ship, he didn't have the right words to say, and maybe there weren't any. Maybe all he had to give was his presence. He hoped to God that was enough.

Pasha didn't say anything when she saw them. Didn't smile like Martha had but didn't seem surprised either. She stood looking with her eyes so hollow and tired and he wondered how she'd slipped Elizabeth and Hazeltine. He still didn't know what to say. Instead he reached out and patted the chair where at different times they'd both sat to watch him.

Pasha came around the bed slowly in the growing dark. If it'd been nearer he would have turned up the lamp but he didn't want to wake Luther after all this. But she sat, and she leaned forward, and she rested her head against her father's shoulder and Zeb could only think to hug her too.

"Whatever happens," he told her, "I want you to know you can come to us for anything. You and your dad, you're our crew."

Pasha didn't say anything, and for a moment he thought she hadn't heard, or she was embarrassed or disgusted, but then he felt her arm snaking around him and she hugged him back.

For a long time he sat there, getting more and more stiff, and yet he was perfectly fine being still and rubbing Pasha's back and listening to Luther's strained but steady breathing. Even if it didn't turn out the way he wanted there was this moment to hold onto.

He expected Martha, or maybe Elizabeth and Hazeltine, but when the door opened it was Jerry who stuck his head in.

"Wondered where everybody went," he said.

"Communal warmth," Zeb told him.

"Yeah, I see that. You got room for some more?"

"Always," he said, before he fully realized what'd been said.

It wasn't just Jerry who came in. It was Perez and Martha, Hazeltine, Elizabeth. Definitely wasn't room for all of them, but they came in anyway, sat wherever they could grab a spot, and a faint whimper escaped from Luther as they jostled him awake. But he didn't cry. Looking down at him Zeb saw his eyes open just long enough, just far enough, to see his daughter leaning against his shoulder, and then his sad tired eyes closed and his head tilted down so his cheek rested against the top of her head.

"We're here for you," Zeb told him, and smiled when Luther nodded. Maybe it would end the way he was afraid it would. Maybe this was the most he could do. Maybe it would have to be enough.

Outside the storm seemed to be calming, though it was too dark to tell for sure. Inside... inside they at least had each other.


End file.
